Lockheed Skunk Works developing truck-sized fusion reactor

By Julie Johnsson

October 16, 2014 — 1.48pm

Chicago: Lockheed Martin's secretive Skunk Works unit, which designed the U-2 spy plane and F-117 stealth fighter jet, is developing a reactor to harness nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun.

The reactor would be small enough to fit in a truck and generate enough energy to light 80,000 homes, the company said.

Program leader Tom McGuire stands next to the compact fusion reactor experiment inside his lab at the Skunk Works in Palmdale, California.Credit:Reuters

The reactor would burn less than 20 kilograms of fuel in a year, producing waste that's "orders of magnitudes less" than the ash and sludge spewed from coal plants.

Lockheed is building on 60 years of research into fusion, a technology that promises to release more energy than current commercial units using nuclear fission, without the risk of Fukushima-style meltdowns.

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A plasma discharge in use for the compact fusion experiment.Credit:Reuters

The technology could be deployed within a decade and would be smaller and easier to make than competing concepts, Lockheed said.

If the concept proved successful, Lockheed's technology could provide a safe, efficient new source of energy for ships as well as utility companies seeking alternative sources of power to coal and gas, said Paul Patterson, a New York-based analyst with Glenrock Associates.

The success of Lockheed's reactor, ultimately, "depends on the cost", Mr Patterson said.

The magnetic coils inside the compact fusion experiment are critical to plasma containment.Credit:Reuters

"This is something to look at 10 years from now. Right now, it's at such an early stage, it's hard to get too excited about the implications."

Lockheed, which holds several patents for the compact fusion reactor, said it could design, build and test the first reactor in less than a year.

The Skunk Works team expected to produce a prototype within five years, after completing several design-build-test cycles, the company said.

Unlike the large fission reactors used to generate electricity, fusion reactors wouldn't produce tonnes of nuclear waste that's radioactive for thousands of years since the fuel consumed is helium, a non-radioactive gas.

The radioactive fuel assemblies in the core of fission reactors create energy by splitting atomic nuclei in a chain reaction, while fusion doesn't involve a chain reaction, according to the international project ITER website.

Only a few grams of tritium, the radioactive fuel component, are used at an time in the reaction chamber.

Fusion reactors wouldn't be vulnerable to the triple meltdown that occurred after a tsunami hit Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011.

Fusion reactions cannot be maintained spontaneously and any disturbance stops the reaction, according to ITER.

Fusion reactors, based on the science of plasma physics, have been far more difficult to develop since cutting-edge technologies like superconductivity, high vacuum and cryogenics must be incorporated into a single device, according to the website.